Jack Crawford
was born in
Sunderland on 22nd March 1775 in a house on Thornhill Bank later known
as Pottery Bank in the East End. He was known as the 'Hero of
Camperdown' because during the Battle of Camperdown on the 11th
October 1797 on board the HMS Venerable, the colours of Admiral Duncan
on his flag ship were felled by Dutch gunfire. Jack despite being
under intense gunfire climbed the mast and nailed the colours to the
top. In recognition of his heroic act he was presented a silver medal
by the people of Sunderland, he also received a pension of £30 a year.
Unfortunately Jack had to sell his medal when he fell on hard times.
Jack became the second victim of the cholera epidemic and died in 1831
and was buried in an unmarked grave. Towards the end of the nineteenth
century interest was renewed about the 'Hero of Camperdown' which
resulted in the erection of a headstone in a Sunderland churchyard in
1888, and two years later a monument was erected in Mowbray Park.
There was also a pub in Monkwearmouth named after him called the Jack
Crawford with a carved figure of him on the side of the building.
After the pub was destroyed by the Germans in the last war the figure
was removed and can now be seen on display in the Sunderland Museum.
Christine Norden was born on the 25th December 1924 Mary
Lydia Thornton daughter of a bus driver. All of her friends at Havlock
School knew her as Molly, and at the age of 14 she left Sunderland to
sing and dance on the London stage. She became the first female
performer to land on Normandy beaches to entertain the troops in 1944,
and after being given a new name in 1945 by film mogul Alexander Korda
she became a film star in the 1940's and 1950's at which time she
moved to Hollywood.
It was in October 1967 she was to become the first
woman to appear topless on Broadway. When she returned to England in
1978 for a visit she told a reporter for the Northern Echo,
"Sunderland is my favourite place and I would love to come back. I
want to go straight to Notarianni's for some ice-cream, and see the
beaches and the people I used to know." Christine died of pneumonia
following a heart by-pass operation on 21st September 1988.
James Herriot
was born James Alfred Wight in Sunderland on the 3rd October 1916. When he was only a
few weeks old his parents moved to Glasgow. It was after he had
completed his veterinary studies James moved to Yorkshire, where he later became
famous for his books and then TV programmes 'All Creatures Great and
Small'. On the 23rd February 1995, James died of cancer at his home in
Yorkshire.
